Starting A Second Family

Why Fatherhood Is A Marathon You Only Want To Run Once

Here’s something that happens one day to many middle-aged dads. You are exhausted. Your dealings with your wife have been reduced to quarrels about whose turn it is to buy the diapers. You go to bed every Sunday night congratulating yourself on having survived the weekend. And then one day, at work or on a business trip, you meet a younger woman. She glows with the bloom of a twenty-something. One thing leads to another. The morning after, you are not yanked out of sleep by a screaming child in the next room. Instead you and the woman go out for a civilized brunch. She actually listens to what you say. Nobody mentions diapers. Months pass before she first makes you come along to dinner with her mother. It’s like being 20 again, but with a bit more cash. A future with her comes to seem appealing.

But there’s a catch. One sweet summer’s evening over dinner, wearing her best gown, she will lean in to give you a good view of that youthful glow, and she will say, “Don’t you think our children would look beautiful?”

And you think: “Children?!” Carefully, you point out that you already have kids. She has anticipated this objection (she has practiced this conversation many times beforehand, with female friends playing your role), and says, “Darling, I understand. Of course I’ll do everything. I’ll be the one getting out of bed at 4 a.m. Just impregnate me.” Then she gazes into your eyes, and you realize what she means: “Say no, and I’m walking out of that restaurant door and you will never see me again.” So you say, “Well…” A year later, at 4am, a baby is crying in the next room.

Here’s a truth about raising kids: it’s a marathon that you can only run once, and preferably before you are very old and creaky. The first time, love and excitement carry you through. You crawl out of bed at 4 a.m., sacrifice your friends, never have more than 17 minutes to yourself, and it’s all worth it because the mystery of a baby turning into a child and then a grownup is a beautiful thing. One day the kid can’t talk; the next (or so it feels) she’s correcting your grammar. You love your children. But you can only do it once.

A friend of mine, nearly fifty years old, is now running that marathon a second time. His lovely young second wife had promised to do all the childrearing herself (with a nanny) and mostly, she is. My friend is happy enough. He loves his little boy. But he says he just cannot summon the excitement about the first tooth, or worry when the kid has a fever, because he knows: in the end it will all be all right. He’s seen it all already with his older children. In the second marathon, the angst and the joys are more muted, and your knees hurt a bit more.

So that fateful night when she leans in and whispers, “Darling…” remember the deathless words of Nancy Reagan: Just say no.